Tired But Very Satisfied - A week in the life of my dancing mission!

Well its been a week since I updated, but thats not because I haven't been dancing. I have been going for it. I basically stepped up my training and practice to usually 3hrs a day which has been awesome.

Friday was stretching and light stuff in the morning and then back to back class friday night of popping and hip hop which was awesome and really nailed the hip hop class with Joseph.

Sat was a 2hr Jazz class in the avo with Julie which was great and I got some really good technique work done and she started to explain how the technique stuff we do (which seems really boring) relates to all the jumps and turns and more complicated moves. I even kept up with the routine we learnt and felt like an 80's fame jazz dancer!! Was classic.

Sunday is recovery day now so I did an hours cardio and stretching with a good spa at my apartment in the evening.

Mon I was in the studio early morning and then BodyJam class in the evening. Was an awesome session in the morning and I refined my piece of choreography and sharpened it up and at the end of my session I completely nailed the routine and it felt sooooooooooo good. It was one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling things to accomplish. It was my creation and it all came together. 6 hours of work! I am happy with it and showed it to someone today who thought it was great, and agreed I need to sharpen it even more. Body Jam was also rocking that night with Gandalf as it was new stuff getting ready for a new choreography launch. Most full on cardio work out I have ever done. No other class gets my heart up like that.

Tuesday was early morning session for 2hrs which I did a lot of jamming, and free styling and working on popping and different moves, plus more on my choreography. I also do yoga on tues which sounds relaxing, but it is the most intense class, but makes you feel so stretched and strong by the end of it. Lots of ab work and balance poses - really hard and I felt very unco!

Wed was a 1 1/2hr gym session in the morning and then a hip hop class with Joseph at City Dance. It was a very funky routine and I really managed to get it down fast and was able to give my full self expression to it and add some real feeling to the routine which always just adds another dimansion and experience to learning and performing choreography. First you learn it and just copy the teacher, then as you really get comforable with it you add your own feeling and soul to it and it becomes your own!

Thurs was a 1.5hr dance session in the studio and Lawrence the popping teacher came along and taught me some popping. Was awesome to get right back to basics of waving and fresno popping. I also begun to work on my next piece of choreography! Yay. So excited about the song. Really funky. And then I did a lunchtime bodyjam class that was full on as always.

And that people is my week in review and what it looks like for me at the moment on my journey. I am also working during the day from home on my own business and with an online marketing company for 2 hrs a day that my cousin owns. And I often come home at night and go back into the office to keep working on projects and business stuff I am creating.

I am pretty tired physically, but actually feeling really good and very satisfied with my progress and what I am accomplishing both with my dancing and all the projects I am at work on.

I am endeavouring to get my choreography filmed soon, but waiting on a few technical things.

Peace!

Finished my first piece of choreography!! YAY!

Well this morning I had another session in the City Dance Studios for an hour, and an hour and a half on Tuesday. I have finished choreographing the first verse of the song I picked which is sooooooooo cool!

I am amazed at what I have created and am definitely hooked on choreography. It is so much fun, so creative and I think I am going to be pretty good at it after this first effort. I will find out when I show it to some other dancers and they tell me what they think.

I need to polish it up a lot which I will do tomorrow morning and get it ready to film with a few other dancers.

So stay tuned for my first dance piece in the next couple of weeks. There will be more to come after that!!

I am so inspired about dancing and the whole hip hop dance scene in NZ. We have I think some of the worlds greatest talent here and I intend to have the world find out about that talent.

I have a number of very cool and creative projects that I am working on with the intention for NZ to be on the map globally for Hip Hop and Street Dance.

Also - last nights hip hop class with Joseph was awesome as always. He is going to take the world by storm with his choreography. I am going to personally make sure of that! Watch his space!!

Love to you all!

Also check out this cool Japanese Group called THE S**t KING who are taking the world by storm!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewJZoMPamk&feature=fvw

Hip Hop has various forms - I learnt about Tricking this week!! Amazing! And some awesome New Zealanders!

Had a great Advanced Hip Hop class tonight with Jackie (guy) who was filling in for Joseph. He was really stylish and it was a really challenging piece which I love because it pushed me and made my brain work gard to get it.

Also I learnt about Tricking this week. A form of movement that is used in hip hop. Its hard to explain so just watch this unbelievable 7min documentary done by a new zealander who is part of a tricking crew in nz. AMAZING!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwO5Q74l0Ds&feature=related

Hope you enjoyed that and I love the fact that New Zealand has so many talented young people who can move in amazing ways.

I love Hip Hop! So Many Great Dancers in NZ - see these youtube clips!

Wednesday nights with Joseph Ling are always great. Had an awesome class tonight. I am really finding my ability to learn the choreography is vastly improved. I am not struggling at all and actually getting it so quickly that I can start to add my own flare and self expression which feels so good.

Here is a really amazing youtube clip that I saw of a talented young NZ dancer Andrew Cesan who I met up with today in a duo called TMC. They came second in New Zealand's Got Talent TV Program last year - which I think they should have won as him and Simon were truly amazing. See this clip and you probably will agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYQIxVnbJUY

This other clip is of him doing some acrobatics, but done in a form used in hip hop dancing. ENJOY - VERY COOL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRuup2AoElU

Yoga - Completely Complimentary To Dance! YOGA IS A MUST

Well I wanted to say a little bit about Yoga today. I had a great session yesterday morning in the studio and did some good work on my choreography. I have almost finished one verse - well roughly finished as it needs to be polished. About a minute or so of the song.

YOGA!

I am doing yoga 1-2 times a week as part of my dance training. I think it is the best and most complimentary exercise to do with dancing, especially hip hop. I find that I am jumping up and down on my joints and working my muscles with dancing in a way that can leave them tight and stiff. Now stretching is always important, but I find yoga a whole other level of stretching.

A one hour yoga class doesn't just stretch out almost every muscle, it facilitates your body being able to drain out any toxins or build up of waste. By the end of the class I am completely zen'd and blissed out and my body feels amazing.

I can't recommend enough 2 yoga classes a week for anyone, especially dancers. I have been doing yoga on and off for about 12 years now and I cannot say enough how essential it is for every person to do some. It completely works your whole body.

The kind of yoga I am talking about is not the yoga where you are sitting in very relaxing and peaceful poses. This is also great and is Hatha yoga.

I do Iyengar Yoga which is full on and works your whole body. I sweat the whole time. Here is some info about Iyengar Yoga - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyengar_Yoga

I do Mandy Whites class at Les Mills on Tuesday Lunchtime which is amazing. She is one of the best and most challenging teachers I have come across and works with all levels. Go to www.mandewhite.co.nz to see more of her classes at her studio.
Very recommended.

I also do Ashtanga yoga which I find similar intensity to Iyengar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtanga_Vinyasa_Yoga

Here are some other links to yoga stuff.

http://www.yoga.co.nz/home.asp

http://yoga.org.nz/

http://www.yogajournal.com

So if you have never tried it then I recommend getting into it, and if you already do - GREAT! You are giving your body the best treatment it can get!

Jazz with Julie at City Dance on Saturday!

Well I am happy to discover that there is a 2hr Jazz class on Saturday afternoons at City Dance. I have been trying to work out how I can do some Jazz as I think it is fundamental to be being a good dancer, but the times have not worked. I was thinking to myself, I wish there was a 2hr block of Jazz class that would fit into my schedule, and I happened to be talking to Julie last Thurs and she told me about her class! Amazing how the universe provides what you need when you are intending it to happen.

So I went Saturday, and the class was awesome. I struggled with all the technical stuff, but I will pick it up. I did not last the full 2 hours and stopped with half hour to go as my brain was muddled and I could feel my body packing in a bit. I have trained and practiced and done classes for 2-3hrs a day this last week, so by the time Sat came around I was absolutely exhausted.

As I have said, I am not interested in pushing myself to the point of injury and I am in no hurry, so as soon as I noticed myself starting to really struggled with the choreography and lose my bounce and spark and start being a bit all over the place, its time to stop.

I am away for the next one, but the week after I will do the full class which will be awesome!

I also had a good jam session in the studio for an hour and a half on Sunday and worked on some specific moves and technical stuff and some more choreography for a song I am choreographing. I have decided that I am going to get 3-4 others to perform it with me, and then post it on my blog and on YouTube as my first piece of choreography. Can't wait and am amped to have a deadline to have to finish it by the 6th of August. STAY TUNED FOR THAT ONE!

I will also post some more videos once I get the charger sent to me for my new video camera that was not in the box when I got back from Sydney after buying it in duty free. And I can't just buy one as they don't stock them so Samsung has to send me one - arggggggg - annoying!

But more vid posts coming v soon people!

Popping and Hip Hopping Fridays!!! My favourite night of the week at City Dance and my best class yet!!

Well, tonight was my back to back classes at City Dance. First I do popping with Lawrence and the Advanced Hip Hop with Joseph.

I was so pumped for tonights classes and they both fulfilled my expectations cos they were AWESOME!

My body was pretty tired as I have increased my training to 2-3 hours a day now. I did a class with Joseph on Wed night and then Thursday morning I had a hour by myself practicing in the City Dance Studios and then did Body Jam at lunchtime at Les Mills which is the most intense cardio workout on the planet with Gandalf.

On Thursday morning I did some more work on a piece of choreography I am working on. I must say, I did not have any idea how much I would love doing choreography. While I am just beginning, and still getting myself proficient at dancing myself, there is a creative spirit in me that gets unleashed when I create my own moves and dance sequences to the music. Its so much fun and so satisfying creating dance to music and lyrics. I feel like a writer when they are trying to write a book, sometimes it just flows out and it's so sweet and enjoyable, and then its like I get writers block and I spend 5min just thinking through which move to do with a particular lyric so that it looks cool and still is depicting what the rapper/singer is saying. And then suddenly it hits me and it's like 'Oh Yeah, thats perfect' and its like you have these breakthroughs in your thinking all the time when that happens and you move it to the next level of working on the piece of dance. Its hard to explain and still very new to me. Its takes a lot of intellectual effort to create movements that flow together, that are somewhat in line with and depicting what the lyrics say, and to have it look sharp, cool and funky. I love it! More to come.

Anyways, tonights classes were awesome. I seemed to hit another level in being able to pick up the choreography tonight. I think its due to the personal practice I have been doing this week and jamming and watching stuff on Youtube on my lunch and dinner breaks.

It was my second class of popping ever, but I really picked up the whole lesson and piece of choreography, and was even able to start to add my self expression to it. Lawrence is a great teacher and involves us in the learning and makes sure he slows it down so we can get it. I love popping and the mechanical movements, and isolating the different parts of the body. It looks and feels so cool.

Hip Hop tonight was the best class I have ever done. The song that Joseph had picked and created the choreography to was sooooooo funky, and I have to say I totally nailed it. More than any other class. I really felt sharp and precise doing the piece tonight, when normally I feel a little clunky and don't weave all the moves together. But tonight I was focussed, and really present. It was like there was nothing else in the world I was thinking about. I was just there, watching, learning and performing the movements, and they seemed to come so easily. It was a real leap forward tonight in my confidence and my own experience of really progressing in my dancing.

Practice, practice and more practice is the source of it!!

I will leave you with this YouTube Clip for some inspiration. Its one of my favourites by Michael Jackson and for sure an inspiration for me to wanna dance and get really really good! Enjoy and have a great weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXK5xOJaYHI

Early Morning Studio Jammin at City Dance!!

Had 2hrs in the City Dance Studios on Tues morning from 730-930am! It was so awesome. Its just so great to be able to hire out the studios at any time that works for me as long as there are no classes on.

I jammed and worked on some of the moves I have been watching on YouTube. Check out this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMtung00gi4

I am going to incorporate it in my piece of choreography that I am creating.

It was so cool to have some time just me and the thumping music in the studio and be able to just jam and rock out, and practice everything I am learning.

Hip Hop Workshop At City Dance on Sunday - IT WAS AWESOME

I attended the 12pm-430pm Hip Hop Workshop run by Margaret and Joseph, with special guest choreographer Jesse. This was a real test for me to see how my stamina is progressing. The plan was to last the full workshop, however about a quarter of the way through learning Margarets routine, I had to sit down. My brain was fried, I was struggling to pick up the moves and my body was starting to feel a little shaky, which is the perfect time for a silly injury. Yes I could say, "harden up", but there is no point for me to push it too far yet, as I've only been going 8 weeks. I have time, and I do not want to do any stupid injuries. I have a long time ahead of me to become the best dancer I can, and I do not need any set-backs. You could call it maturity!! HA! When I was 20 I would have just pushed on, even if I was hurting in the wrong places.

Anyway, the workshop was just awesome.

Joseph started it all off at 12pm with a warm up and then we spent an hour and a quarter doing a nice piece of choreography that he had put together. I have now done a lot of classes with Joseph, so I am getting used to his style. As always it was smooth and very groovy.

Jesse was up next, who is in Josephs dance crew. He was very different than any of the classes I have been doing, which was really cool. We did a very funky, almost Krumpy piece that was big moves, and using the whole body, and really accentuating the hits on the beat. The piece of music was very fast and so were the moves. It was a very gangsta rap tune, that mad you feel pretty bad ass dancing to it. V Cool Jesse and a good choice! It was incredibly challenging, however I almost nailed it, which was good for me as it demanded a serious amount of attention to learn it and it was very physical and fast. A good change up from Josephs smooth style.

Then Margaret did her piece, which started OK for me, but then as I said I opted out to rest and recover. I was done by this point after 3 hrs or so of dancing. Her choreography was a little more girly which was cool, and a good change from the other 2 pieces of the day. It was very funky and sassy. I would have loved to have lasted as everyone doing it looked HOT!

The whole day was to raise funds for Margaret, Amelia and Karen going to the USA to dance - GOOD LUCK GUYS and thanks for putting on this day.

I want more workshops like this. We need to get more people involved next time as well.

I'm feeling pretty good today, and I'm not too sore -thanks to some time in the cold pool at Les Mills (I went straight there after the workshop), and then in the spa and back to the cold pool.

TIP FOR RECOVERY - Spending some time going into a cold pool for 5 min, then a spa/steam room for 5 min, then back and forth to the cold pool has you recover so much faster. It flushes out all the lactic acid much faster and aids recovery!!

2 Classes Friday - Popping with Lawrence Liew and Hip Hop with Joseph Ling

Well I did my first back to back classes on Friday. I lasted, despite my brain becoming a little fatigued at the end of the Advanced Hip Hop class.

The first class was a POPPING class. Not sure how to describe it of you don't know what that is, so here is the wikipedia definition:
Popping is a dance style and one of the original funk styles of dance that came out of Fresno, CA in the 1970s.[1] It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop, tick or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.
I love popping, as its so on the beat and funky. I have never done a full popping only class so I learnt soooo much. I realised that it is also thelegs that make the body pop or tick, which makes it so much easier to make your body pop as you move.

Check out these awesome popping videos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_9x_TSZeGQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9vQgbPYgaI&feature=related

Lawrence is an awesome teacher. We had such a fun class and I loved his combination of moves for our piece of choreography. It flowed together nicely.

Then I went straight to my Friday night usual Advanced Hip Hop class. It was a very funky but challenging routine from Joseph tonight, but as always very enjoyable to learn such cool choreography. I am always blown away by his thought and creativity that goes into making up the routines.

So I recommend both classes. If you have never heard of popping and you have been dancing a bit, then its worth trying. Its a whole new way to work your body and connect all your joints and limbs into a funky frenzy!!!

And if you have done a number of hip hop classes you should totally try Josephs Friday night class. It will challenge you, but he is very good at breaking it down so you can nail it by the end of the class!!

Looking forward to the four and a half hour hip hop workshop today. YAY!! Look forward to writing about it!

Body Jam - Thursday Lunchtime at Les Mills with Gandalf!

Wow what a wicked class today. It was so much fun and such a good cardio workout. I am doing 2 bodyjam classes a week to work on my fitness as they are the most high energy class I have ever done. I was wrecked by the end of it as I went full out. There was some new moves and cool choreography - as always from Mr Gandalf!

Joseph Ling and his smooth stylish chorepgraphy! To see him go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpBl6VG6NKQ or just YouTube Joseph Ling

Wednesday nights Intermediate Hip Hop Class with Joseph Ling can only be described as smooth and stylish. Just YouTube Joseph Ling and check him out!

He has a unique way of creating choreography that makes you feel like you are really dancing to the music and the words that are in the song. He has a knack of creating his moves to go with the exact style of music and the lyrics. So by the time you have learnt the piece of choreography you really let yourself get into the whole song.

I can see this guy becoming one of NZ's best choreographers for any kind of hip/hop, funk or pop music choreography.

On a personal note, I am getting so much better. I found tonights class a lot more relaxing than normal as I am finding (which is obvious) the more I am watching other people dance and learning choreography the faster I am picking up moves when learning. Its a great feeling when the practice and repetition starts to pay off.

Also, I just downloaded Christina Agulieras top hits album - wow she had a lot of awesome hits!!! 10 years worth. Nice!